1. Field
The following description relates to an apparatus and method for determining a user's mental state.
2. Description of the Related Art
Terminals, such as smart phones and tablet personal computers (PCs), provide various functions based on hardware and software performance. Context-aware services that recognize a user's context and provide a function suitable to the context are being actively attempted. Examples of such services are services that are provided using location information of a user, for example, services that automatically provide an available coupon when a user goes in front of a restaurant. In future, intelligent service based on more significant user information, such as, for example, a user's mental state may be provided.
However, technology for recognizing a user's mental states mainly analyzes a user's physical reaction, such as technology that analyzes a user's facial image to map a motion of a specific facial muscle to a specific emotion, or technology that analyzes a voice feature of a user to map the voice feature to a specific emotion, or technology that analyzes a bio-signal feature of a user to map the bio-signal feature to a specific emotion. In such emotion-recognition technology that analyses a user's physical reaction, it is not easy to determine the user's emotion when a user deliberately conceals a physical reaction (non-expression, etc). Thus, a separate sensor (skin response sensor or the like) is attached to a body for measuring a physical reaction, which inconveniences the user. For these reasons, the use of emotion recognition technology is restricted.